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Hi there, I am looking at buying a car for no more than 12,000. I am very interested in the Mazda Atenza sedan (automatic) and have come across two that I like + one mazda 6. 2002 with 61,000 ks for $11,000 – 2003 with 78,000 ks for $12,000 or 2005 Mazda 6 ex rental from well known rental company, for $10,500 with 103,000ks I did a search on carjam and saw that it had been de-registered, I asked the company and reason given: car sat around back of yard due to lazy manager not keeping up with registration. Could an AA Inspection be able to confirm this?
Would it be wise to go with the lower ks? Thanks for your time

I am going to discard the ex rental based on the reasons given for its de-registration. The vehicle must have sat around for over a year with an expired registration. Owners have twelve months to relicense their vehicle once the registration has expired so I can’t believe any car yard would allow or want a vehicle to sit around in that condition for so long.

Car dealers have vehicles in stock for one reasons only; that is to sell them as quickly as possible. You could not rule out the possibility of accident damage being the reason the vehicle was off the road for so long either.

It is almost a toss of the coin on the other two. You need to do a very careful check on specification levels to ensure you are comparing similar vehicles. Look for number of airbags and steering wheel mounted audio controls and cruise control for example.

Also make sure the engine sizes are the same (2.0litre v 2.3litre?).

The other important point is the actual selling price you can negotiate.

My head is saying go for the later model if you are comparing apples with apples and it stacks up OK after a pre purchase inspection.

Thank you so much for your reply. You have helped a lot!!! The 2002 61,000 ks and 2003 78,000ks have both been AA Appraised. The difference between them is the amount of air bags they have. 2002 has 2 and 2003 has 8. The prices have been negotiated and that’s the lowest cash price they will go. 2002 has now been offered to us for $10,500. I guess we need to decide if it’s worth paying $1500.00 more for a 1 year later model with 8 airbags.